After the resounding success that was Anthony Joshua’s 2017 fight against Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn announced Joshua will return to the venue for his next two fights.
Joshua will be fighting at Wembley Stadium for his next fight, scheduled to take place on September 22 against Alexander Povetkin, though the fight has not been formally announced. The two sides are deep in negotiations with multiple aspects of the fight already negotiated, including drug testing.
The second of the two fights at Wembley will take place on April 13, 2019 largely expected to be the highly-anticipated bout against Deontay Wilder for the undisputed WBA, WBO, WBC, IBF heavyweight championship. Although the maximum capacity for Wembley currently stands at 90,000, Hearn wrote on Twitter that capacity for the 2019 fight is to be extended have more than 100,000 fans fill the arena.
With that attendance number, the 2019 fight could end up being one of the five-most attended boxing fights of all time with Max Schmelling vs. Walter Neusel drawing approximately 102,000 attendants in Hamburg, Germany in 1934 being the fifth-highest attendance figure. The highest paid attendance for a boxing fight in history was Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Greg Haugen in 1992 being watched by 132,247 in Estadio Azteca in Mexico. One fight does have a slightly higher attendance than the 1992 fight: Tony Zale vs. Billy Prior in 1941 although admission was free for that event.
Joshua’s fight against Klitschko, which saw Joshua knock out Klitschko in the 11th round to unify the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles, broke the British boxing attendance record with 90,000 people attending the fight.
